[AccessD] Dashboard on a $0.00 budget

I have recently been experimenting with Access 2007 to create a dashboard on
a report.

Here is what I have done…

Found a simple “gauge” with a movable needle in Visio format on the web.

Used this gauge as a template to make 21 little gauges in Visio that are all
the same except for the position of the needle (0, 5, 10, 15… up to 100).

Exported these gauges from Visio as .jpg files (gauge0.jpg, gauge5.jpg,
gauge10.jpg, etc)

Created a new report in Access 2007 with an image on it.

Wrote a little VBA code to compute a “percentage” of something that we would
like to measure (% uptime for example).

Wrote VBA code to change the “Picture” property of the Image based on this
computed percentage.

This works nicely, cost nothing, and is easy to do.

I share this for two reasons – First of all, someone else may find this
approach useful.

Secondly, someone else may have an even better approach.

Brad